[HOT LIST] Neapolitan pizza

Mani Osteria. All photos by Nicole Rupersburg.

There has been a growing trend in metro Detroit recently, and one that has been happening relatively quietly. No, it's not upscale BBQ or upscale comfort food -- those trends have been anything but quiet. But while we have continued to bow at the altar of the almighty mac and cheese, coal- and wood-fired pizzerias are increasing in number (not to mention overall quality), and more specifically, Neapolitan-style pizzas are quickly nipping at the heels of their Sicilian-born Detroit-style deep dish brethren.

Pizza gets a bad rep. Typically thought of as the garbage pail gut-bomb it has been bastardized into courtesy of America (USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA!), when people think of "pizza" they think of grease-soaked dense pan-cooked crust gobbed with dripping piles of cheap cheese and piled over with a zoo's worth of animal flesh. While I have a certain passion for such pedestrian pizzas like the fat Midwesterner that I am, not all pizza is so offensive to refined tastes. Neapolitan-style pizza is defined by high-quality, fresh, simple and healthy ingredients -- unbleached flour, fresh mozzarella, exceptional produce, extra virgin olive oil. In its truest Neapolitan form, pizza is actually quite healthy.

There is a very specific set of criteria that qualifies a pizza as "Neapolitan," but there are only two pizzerias in metro Detroit that are officially certified as such. For the purposes of this Hot List, I'm looking at places that are Neapolitan in spirit if not 100% in practice. Taken into consideration is size, shape and flavor of the dough; the quality and caliber of ingredients (prosciutto, yes; Canadian bacon, no); whether the pizza ovens are coal- or wood-fired; and, as is the case with any Hot List, whether or not I like it.*

The Margherita pizza at Antica Pizzeria Fellini.

#1 Antica Pizzeria Fellini (Royal Oak)
For more about the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana, scroll down to #4. Got it? 'k. So this place is metro Detroit's other VPN-recognized Neapolitan pizzeria, and it's the real deal. This place is the most like an actual restaurant in Italy out of any of the faux-Italian eateries I’ve ever been in – it’s just a space, a simple space they obviously made some effort to make it look nice but otherwise a room in a building, nothing more. The owner is ever-present, presiding over the restaurant from his post in the very open kitchen, making all the food himself and personally checking in with all the customers. (For a little added authenticity, he even has an Italian accent). There was once a time when Il Posto was the most "Italian" place in Detroit, reminiscent of the highly-orchestrated fussy fine dining at Michelin-rated restaurants in touristy Toscana. Antica is countryside Italian, a small family-owned spot that exists solely to serve good food to their "extended" family, the customers. This is hands-down the best Neapolitan pizza I’ve ever had in Michigan. The dough tastes like flour, salt and yeast with a bit of wood smoke – in other words, exactly what it is, a mere canvas for the superior tomato sauce and creamy mozzarella. Their house-baked bread used for their bruschetta would also make excellent fettunta, and I wouldn't be surprised if they would in fact make it for you if you asked.

#2 Pizzeria Biga (Royal Oak, Southfield)
The custom-built brick oven chef-proprietor Luciano del Signore had flown in from Italy is pretty much the Ferrari of pizza ovens. Actually I think I said it best when I said, "The showpiece of the place is the 6,000-pound Ferrari-red wood-burning oven hand-made in Naples, Italy by Stefano Ferrara who is (channeling Cher Horowitz), like, a totally important designer. (Of ovens.)" Also, I am apparently fond of the Ferrari comparison. Real talk: this is not the best Neapolitan-style pizza of the bunch; several others on this list and listed as "bubbling under" are better. But do any of those other places have 24 international craft beers on tap and a beer store in their basement? No they do not. Extra bonus for the use of their own house-made charcuterie like duck prosciutto, which if you HAVE to pollute your pizza with animal carcass then this would be the place to do it.

The Margherita pizza at Tony Sacco's.

#3 Tony Sacco's Coal Oven Pizza (Novi, Ann Arbor coming soon)
It's a casual joint that manages to strike the perfect balance between pedestrian pizza gluttony and European refinement. You can read more about their $50,000 custom-built oven that burns extremely expensive clean-burning coal here; see also all fresh ingredients and everything made from scratch with no freezers, no microwaves and no fryers anywhere in the building. For a place that feels like such a casual sit-down pizza place, their commitment to quality is unmatched. The pizzas themselves toe that line of excessive American meatiness, but their Margherita is the real deal and the Bianco is bang-on. And also also also also the garlic rolls.

#4 Cellar 849 (Plymouth)
As Michigan's first certified Neapolitan pizza recognized by the Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana (VPN) -- the "pizza polizia" -- of Naples, Italy, Cellar 849 adheres to the strict regulations that respect the tradition of true Neapolitan pizza, including a custom wood-burning oven, hand-rolled dough, and fresh, all-natural ingredients. They use some of the highest-quality imported ingredients available, including Fior di Latte mozzarella, Denominazione di Origine Protteta (DOP -- the produce polizia) San Marzano tomatoes, Italian extra virgin olive oil, prosciutto di Parma and Caputo flour. Their Italian-built wood-burning oven is the same as those used at the flashier Pizzeria Biga joints, and the remainder of the menu is just as delightfully Italian, including the (somewhat predictable) wine and beer lists. Yes, I just plagiarized myself here.

#5 Crispelli's Bakery + Pizza (Berkley)
Make no mistake, this place is a clusterfuck. It is so much of a clusterfuck that I'm not even sure why anyone would even make the attempt to go there on a Friday night. Don't go on a Friday night. All the traffic controllers and little metal signs with numbers on them designating your assigned seats in the open-seating cafeteria-style restaurant cannot make this any less of an exercise in tedium, nor does it make up for the fact that you have to wait in six different lines just to cobble together a single meal and if you don't stand in the middle of the register area with all of the other blank-looking meat bags you'll have no way of knowing when your food is ready. Pizza? That's one line. Salad? That's another. Drinks? Look, don't make this complicated: go on an off day at an off time and order one of their "Authentic Italian" thin crust pizzas. Despite all of the MANY inconveniences of ordering, their pizza is worth the hassle. (Just not on a Friday night.) Another thing I like: the self-serve structure means your $10 pizza really is $10 -- none of the added charges of sitting down in a restaurant with a server, ordering drinks, having to tip, so on and so forth until your $10 pizza becomes a $25 pizza. If you want to stuff your face on the quick without the fuss but still have high standards, this is the place to go.

Bubbling under Terra Cotta Pizzeria (Windsor), Tomatoes Apizza (Farmington Hills, Novi), Spago Trattoria E Pizzeria (Windsor), Vito's Olde Walkerville Pizzeria (Windsor), Mani Osteria (Ann Arbor), Fresco Wood Oven Pizzeria (Rochester Hills)

*Gas ovens have been excluded. Supino uses a gas oven. Is that a bad thing? Certainly not. The best pizza I ever had in my life was made in a gas oven. But that is not for this list. I have to draw the line somewhere, and I drew that line at coal. Because...I did. Because I can. So there. Still more places not listed here -- Vinsetta Garage, Union Woodshop, Bad Brad's BBQ Shelby Twp., J. Baldwin's, Motor City Brewing Works -- use wood-fired pizza ovens (as I said, this is becoming quite the trend), but their pizzas didn't quite meet my very loosely-defined Neapolitan-ish criteria. 

[HOT LIST] Poutine

Brooklyn Street Local. 

Last week both the Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News ran stories on Detroit's sudden poutine craze. Seeing as how I've been Pied-Pipering the poutine scene for the better part of a year now (while the bulk of that was covered on Facebook, there are also searchable archives here to support that), I feel it a matter of unfortunate timing that the results of my diligent research for this particular Hot List -- which is, make no mistake, the most thoroughly-researched Hot List I've ever published -- should come out after both of those stories. Let us remember who asked to henceforth be referred to as the Queen of Poutine before either of them ran. In other words what I'm really trying to say is FIRST.

Poutine is the most magical of comfort foods. Authentic ethnic cuisine from the exotic foreign lands of Canada, poutine is in essence French fries covered in gravy and cheese curds. And it must -- *MUST* -- be cheese curds; shredded cheese simply will not do. Perfect for the late-night drunchies, homeopathic hangover treatments and all hours of comfort food cravings, poutine is sovereign. With Windsor closer to Detroit than Royal Oak, it's a bit befuddling as to why poutine never became a "thing" until now. (Sidebar: If I had a dime for every time I've said "Poutine: it's gonna be a thing," well, I'd actually be getting paid for doing this which would be awesome.) But these dark days are now behind us and the poutine prophecy has been fulfilled.

Mercury Burger Bar.

Some things to note before we move forward, as this one has been particularly near and dear to me: with no fewer than three of the four hyper-trendy eateries in Corktown serving the stuff, Corktown can now be called Poutine Town. (Someone tell Slows that they're falling behind.) Some places serve what can only best be called variations on the theme of poutine (like Woodbridge Pub, which uses potato wedges with mushroom gravy and cheddar cheese cubes, or the Rattlesnake Club, which uses a bleu cheese sauce served on the side of their truffle fries), others need to go back to the drawing board (sorry, Mac Shack), and others still have been vastly improved upon after a little constructive criticism (Mercury Burger Bar before; Mercury Burger Bar after). And the trend shows no sign of stopping: Local Kitchen + Bar will have poutine on their menu too.

And finally, some might question why none of the Windsor joints are in the top 5. Easy: no one is paying $8 roundtrip to cross the border and deal with American customs for a $6 order of fries. Agree or disagree; that's just reality. Windsor will gets its due soon enough, promise.

#1 Vinsetta Garage (Berkley)
Yep. Number one. It isn't even called "poutine" on the menu, but their "Disco Fries" are no doubt of Canadian lineage. House-cut fries dolloped with perfectly melty gooey Ellsworth cheese curds and slathered in piping hot whole grain mustard gravy, chili flakes and scallions. How did this place beat out those of authentic Canadian pedigree? Well this restaurant is nothing if not a comfort food house of worship and while their mac + cheese is most exalted, the poutine is secretly king. Also, I have a bias towards spicy foods and the addition of whole grain mustard and chili flakes shot this over the top.

Vinsetta Garage.

#2 Brooklyn Street Local (Corktown)
Welcome to our country you lovely Canadians and thank you for sharing with us this part of your culture! Brooklyn Street Local serves the best traditional Canadian poutine: hand-cut fries with organic cheese curds and homemade beef gravy. Vegetarian? They'll swap out the beef gravy with a tasty homemade mushroom gravy. Bacontarian? They'll add caramelized onions and bacon. (That's the special house "BSL Poutine.") And and AND ... if what you really want is one of their other many fantastic made-from-scratch hearty diner eats, you can get a side of poutine for only $3. AND! As of this week, they now accept credit cards.

#3 Grange Kitchen + Bar (Ann Arbor)
No one's ever going to accuse their poutine of being pretty, but Chef Brandon Johns's duck confit poutine with goat cheese curd and duck sage gravy (all locally-sourced and made in-house, the cheese from Four Corners Creamery and the duck from Back Forty Acres) is not just awesome -- it is aw-awholelot. Grange, and quite possibly this dish in itself, is well worth the trip to A2.

#4 24grille (Detroit)
Kind of glad I kept this one in my back pocket. Executive Chef Christian Borden is from Toronto. This is important because, as we know, poutine is an indigenous Canadian cuisine and Canadians do it best by nature. The poutine at 24grille is something of a best-kept secret: only available on their lunch menu, it's $6 for an order of proper poutine made with hand-cut Idaho potato, gravy, cheese curds, herbs, and then cranked up with a pile o' pulled pork.

#5 Green Dot Stables (Corktown)
How much do we love them? Let's count the ways! (1) Owners Jacques and Christine Driscoll are simply outstanding people (ditto Chef Les Molnar). You'd want them to do well even if their product sucked. While there is certainly no shortage of nepotism in Detroit, thankfully their product does not suck so you can support awesome people doing equally awesome things. (2) Cheap beer! (3) Cheap food! (4) Cheap GOOD beer! (5) Cheap GOOD food! (6) And also poutine! "Le poutine" is $3 in the classic Canadian style: homemade gravy and cheese curds over their crispy shoestring fries. For added emphasis, it's $3. In fact, nothing on their menu is more than $3 ... and that includes all their craft beer and cocktails. LOVE.

Bubbling under Sardine Room (Plymouth), Frenchy's Poutinery (Windsor), Woodbridge Pub (Detroit), Toscana (Windsor), Mercury Burger Bar (Corktown), Rattlesnake Club (Detroit), Pita Grill (Windsor)

 

The Week We Ate (The EID Week in Review)

Honi Honi. Photo from Curbed Detroit.

GQ interviewed our very own Dave Mancini of Supino Pizzeria for some of his favorite spots in Detroit then proceeded to publish a story about Detroit in a national publication that doesn't suck! (And the magic leprechaun juju of Corktown strikes again, with the newly-opened Green Dot Stables already a sure "bet." [Get it?]) [GQ]

...which is to say nothing of the magic leprechaun juju of Ferndale, where a rainbow always shines. Imperial is open and everyone lurrrrrrrvs it. [Freep]

...which is to say nothing of how much MORE everyone lurrrrrrrrrvs Vinsetta Garage. Since the minute they opened they've been on a 90+ minute wait list - it's the new Slows! (In that people-are-willing-to-wait-a-ridiculous-amount-of-time-for-a-damn-burger sort of way. But apparently a "really fucking good" burger.) [Real Detroit Weekly]

It's tiki time! Honi Honi - the Oakland's new outdoor tiki bar - opens, and it makes us feel so good ... so fine ... and we feel all right saying yeah, yeah! yeah, yeah! yeah, yeah! [Thrillist Detroit; Curbed Detroit]

...and to ring it in good and proper, Eat It Detroit celebrated our first birthday there! And because there seems to be a little bit of confusion here, IT'S CAKE. WHAT IS SMEARED ALL OVER THE BABY IN THE PHOTO IS FROSTING AND CAKE. [EID FB]

If a steakhouse opens in Birmingham and no one is around to see it, does it make a sound? After more than a three-year delay, Hyde Park Prime opens and no one cares. [D Business]

Great Lakes Coffee's new Midtown coffee shop and wine bar let Curbed in for a sneak peek and it is grrrrrrrrrrr-eat! Reclaimed wood! Natural light! Exposed brick! Massive patio! Basically it's every coffee shop in California, except for that DETROIT!!! (And also California coffee shops lack the real estate to pull of that kind of patio. DETROIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) [Curbed Detroit]

Jolly Pumpkin's extremely limited De Viento is tapped around town, but don't get too excited because it's gross. But, hey, charity and whatnot. You win some, you lose some. [EID FB]

MLive names "Michigan's Best BBQ." Predictably, there is disagreement. Perhaps somewhat unpredictably depending on who you ask, it isn't Slows. [MLive]

Ferndale is getting a frozen yogurt shop with a super-adorb name. Easy Like Sundae is taking the "support Michigan, buy our product" angle, which the natives will surely eat up. [EID FB]

[Real Detroit Weekly] Vinsetta Garage

Photo by Nicole Rupersburg.

There have been a slew of new restaurants opening in metro Detroit lately, and most have been met with some measure of excitement and media frenzy. But none has been so eagerly anticipated as Vinsetta Garage, a new restaurant located in a historic old garage on Woodward Ave. in Berkley.

Part of that is because the owners have kept such a tight lid on it. Curt Catallo (a respected restaurateur who also owns Union Woodshop and Clarkston Union, both of which recently appeared on an episode of Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives on the Food Network) and KC Crain (vice president and group publisher of Crain Communications and overseer of AutoWeek) have only allowed a scant amount of media coverage prior to the opening, which naturally fanned the flames of interest. Both partners have their own backgrounds in the auto industry (Catallo on the ad agency end, Crain on the publishing end) and both are huge auto enthusiasts. The iconic garage was important to each of them, so when Catallo approached Crain (who had recently purchased the building) about doing a restaurant concept inside, it was pure serendipity.

Read more.

[Oakland County Prosper] A Feast for the Eyes

Torino Espresso + Bar. Photo by Nicole Rupersburg.

There has been a flurry of restaurant opening activity in Oakland County lately. Ferndale has seen One-Eyed Betty’s and John D Bistro both open within the last two months, with Woodward Imperial (which will serve California-style gourmet tacos) and Local Kitchen and Bar (serving contemporary American and upscale comfort food) opening soon. The Roberts Restaurant Group – which operates Streetside Seafood in Birmingham, Town Tavern in Royal Oak, and Beverly Hills Grill in Beverly Hills – recently opened Roadside B&G in Bloomfield Hills in the former Brandy’s location, and are currently working on their next concept, Bar ML in Birmingham. Craft beer lovers have a new mecca at Clubhouse BFD, which just opened in February in Rochester Hills. And there are about a dozen other upscale, big-budget concepts currently in the works in Birmingham and Royal Oak which just goes to show the restaurant industry is on an unprecedented upswing in 2012.

One thing all of these places seem to have in common is a whole new focus on interior design. Previously it seemed that design aesthetic in restaurants and bars was never anything more than an afterthought; if the bar itself was interesting (glossy polished wood perhaps, or industrial chic metal and concrete) the rest sort of fell by the wayside; the emphasis was all on the menu, the wine list and the staffing – the rest would just get covered in tablecloths anyway.

Read more.

[EID Preview] Vinsetta Garage

All photos by Nicole Rupersburg.

Theme restaurants are, by their very nature, horrendously gimmicky. Hard Rock Cafe, Planet Hollywood, Rainforest Cafe ... conjure if you will the image of waddling Midwesterners herding their hordes of bratletts through these endlessly replicable themed eateries, taking pictures next to chintzy displays then stopping by the gift shop to stock up on T-shirts and shot glasses to commemorate the experience (after dropping a minimum of $25 per person on oversized portions of mediocre fried food). These places are horrid.

Thankfully Vinsetta Garage will not be a theme restaurant.

The historic Vinsetta Garage on Woodward in Berkley was built in 1919 and served as an auto repair shop with hot-rodder appeal for 91 years. It was owned by the Kurta family until 1989; the family even used to live in a tiny apartment within the building (their kids could often be found running around the garage as if it were their personal play area). Jack Marwil, who purchased the garage from the Kurtas, decided to close it in 2010 following the death of his wife when he was no longer able to run the shop himself. Marwil then sold the building to its third owner in nearly 100 years: K.C. Crain.

The name "Crain" should be familiar to you. Perhaps you've heard of Crain Communications? Who put out Crain's Detroit and some 30-odd other publications throughout the country? Well, K.C. is the Vice President and Group Publisher. K.C.'s affiliation with the auto industry runs deep. As publisher of Crain's, K.C. also oversees its sister publication AutoWeek. As a car enthusiast himself, AutoWeek is one of his pet projects. It just launched a highly interactive website in September that already has about 2.5 million readers per month, and the brand also has a strong film and video production component. K.C. is already so entrenched in the auto industry that purchasing a historic old garage with the intention of doing something with it (though it would be several months before he figured out what exactly) just seemed like a natural fit.

K.C. purchased Vinsetta Garage at the urgent prompting of GM, which at the time wanted to overhaul it into an aftermarket parts shop. When the GM deal fell through, he wasn't quite sure what to do next. So he did what any media-savvy publisher would do: he created a TV show.

AutoWeek's Vinsetta Garage, which airs Tuesday nights at 8:30 p.m. on the Velocity Network, is a show about cars and the love of cars. While the show itself is not filmed inside Vinsetta Garage (though it does make an appearance), the name of this historic old garage lends to the show that sense of automotive enthusiasm that the garage, and the Motor City itself, is known for. Each episode has a different focus on anything and everything to do with car culture - travel, technology, food trucks, and events like the Woodward Dream Cruise and NAIAS.

Meanwhile, in the far northwest corner of Oakland County (aka "the Shire"), Clarkston's Curt Catallo had seen the listing for the 5,400 sq.ft. building and immediately thought to himself that it would be a great space for a restaurant. Three days later, the listing was removed. Curt just hoped that whoever bought it hadn't had the same idea.

Curt is the owner of Clarkston Union Bar + Kitchen and the Free Press's 2011 Restaurant of the Year Union Woodshop, two restaurants that despite their far-flung location from the major population centers of metro Detroit still garner huge attention and acclaim, with wait times of up to two hours on weekends. (Basically it's NoSlo ... Northern Slows.) The Woodshop recently expanded with an upstairs waiting-room-cum-dude-lounge serving craft cocktails and cheap drinks for customers to relax as they wait for a table, but chances are if you've heard either of these restaurants' names come up in the news lately it's because of their recent featured spots on the Food Network's "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives."

In addition to being a restaurateur, Curt also has a long history in the car industry, which is also how he knew K.C. "The automotive circle is a tight one; you can't help but run in the same pack." Curt worked for AutoWeek for five years in the beginning of his advertising and marketing career before joining BBDO and overseeing their Chrysler account, then finally splitting off to form Union Adworks which currently handles a variety of design and applications work for Chrysler and Mopar (Chrysler's parts division).

So K.C. had a building ... and Curt had an idea.

"I had heard the rumor from some friends at Chrysler that K.C. had bought the building," Curt explains. As it happened, Curt had to go down to the Crain's office for a meeting with AutoWeek, where K.C. was talking about using the space as a studio for filming segments of the TV show. Curt told K.C., "the one thing about Detroit right now is that there are plenty of studios. [My wife] Ann and I always thought it would be a great restaurant." That day they drove from the Crain's office on Gratiot in Detroit's Eastern Market and up Woodward to the garage to look at the space. "I've had the keys ever since!"

After restoring an old abandoned church in 1995 into what is now the Clarkston Union and transforming his own upscale Clarkston Cafe into the more accessible, more affordable Woodshop, Curt is certainly no stranger to reinvention. Inside the old garage - which still had its car bays, air hose reels and tire rack - Curt saw a prime location for another comfortable but upscale American eatery, the style of cooking that has been the defining characteristic of his restaurants. "It's kind of a blank canvas for the craftsmen to do their trade," Curt explains. "We're just replacing the tools of the trade. It's still a stage and still about craft, it's just a different service we're providing. It's almost like a continuation of what [the garage] was born to do in a weird way."

Renovation work on Vinsetta Garage is well under way. The space has been gutted and the kitchen build-out has begun. But for Curt and K.C. both it was very important to preserve the history of the garage and allow it to maintain its structural and aesthetic integrity. “We are preserving a place that is important to the community in a different kind of way,” Curt explains.

The restaurant will pay homage to the building's history, both as a reflection of K.C.'s and Curt's automotive passion as well as their passion for historic preservation. This is not a car restaurant. There will be no neon signage out front, and nothing mentioning "restaurant." "This is not a 'theme' restaurant, it's a real restaurant," Curt says. It is a restaurant inside of a garage, but that's about as much of a theme as you'll find here. "We're basically just replacing wrenches with spatulas."

They are keeping as much of the original structure as possible - the exposed brick walls, the weathered concrete floors, the high wooden beams, the glass block windows. "All of it, all you see, is all natural and all original," says Curt. "We would rather preserve than build new." Curt and his wife Ann Stevenson are both very passionate about preservation and have always made that an integral part of their business ethic. "Our design philosophy on this one was kind of one of radical preservation. The space is going to be so honest it will tie directly to the food and craft."

Inside Vinsetta Garage is a smaller room set off to the side (which once served as the Kurta family apartment) which will serve as a secondary dining room. In it there is only one table: a massive old milliner's table that they acquired through Detroit's Senate Resale which is really just one massively long, sturdy flank of wood. Salvaged items like this have a warmth and character that can't be replicated in contemporary new designs, and the table itself reflects the character of the space overall. Honesty, integrity and sustainability are the most important considerations for them in design and execution.

Making yet another automotive reference, Curt says that he wants the restaurant to have "sort of a barn show effect" ... basically describing it as when a person goes to look at a car and sees nothing but the exterior of the weathered old barn it was stored in, only to have the barn doors open and see a beautifully restored car inside - the grand, gasp-worthy reveal of something totally unexpected.

The kitchen itself will be open and the bar will wrap around it, so that those sitting at the bar will be able to watch the kitchen staff at work. Curt describes the kitchen as the "new theatre," and diners want to be able to see what goes on behind the scenes. 

The Woodshop's Executive Chef Aaron Cozadd will be overseeing the kitchen at Vinsetta Garage. While the menu will still reflect the upscale American comfort food the Clarkston restaurants are known for, they will not be merely recreating the same concept a second time here in Berkley. There will be a wood-fired pizza oven and some smoked meats, but it won't be a replica of the Woodshop. "We don't want  to repeat ourselves and just make it the same thing all over again," Curt says. "We want to let the space dictate the food." He adds, "Besides, we don't want Aaron to get bored!" Another signature of theirs that will be carried over is their commitment to craft beer; they will have at least 22 beers on tap with an emphasis on Michigan craft brews. (K.C. jokes with Curt, "And only three of those are allowed to be Badass," referencing Curt's partnership with metro Detroit's own American Badass Kid Rock and his Badass beer.)

Vinsetta Garage will be open by May 1. This is an exclusive sneak peak of the construction process.

Want to see more? View the Flickr set here.

[HOT LIST] Donut shops

This man needs coffee and crullers, STAT!

The classic American doughnut shop is a time-honored tradition, the second most crucial of the Great American Gathering Places (right behind diners). Before coffee shops got fancy and then fancier, the doughnut shop was the centralized early morning meeting place of business people and old-timers alike. There are many truly classic doughnut shops in metro Detroit; some have been around 50 years or more (and look it, gahblessem). These places all serve beautifully misshapen homemade doughnuts and are open EARLY to LATE (many are 24 hours, in theory if not in actual practice). Like stepping back in time, each of these independent doughnut shops that have ridden out the proliferation of Dunkin' Donuts and Krispy Kreme offer a little bit of that homey, down-to-earth small-town feel. The coffee isn't fancy; it's all good old-fashioned 1950's commodified American brew. "Good" means it's not burnt, and that's good enough, because the nuanced flavor of a freshly-roasted Nicaraguan French press would just be lost in the mouthfuls of glazed deep-fried dough anyway.

#1 Knudsen's Danish Bakery (Detroit)
Located in Northwest Detroit's Rosedale Park neighborhood, one of those inexplicably adorable areas of Detroit surrounded on all sides by post-apocalyptic bombed-out third-world Detroit, Knudsen's Danish Bakery is a cute little bakery that specializes in cakes, breads (like thick, dense egg bread), donuts, and - naturally - danishes. Try a rich raspberry or cheese danish and savor the dense, soft, vanilla-perfumed danish dough. Unlike nearly every other bakery on this list, they actually accept credit cards here, but you probably won't need it - prices are incredibly cheap, even by doughnut shop standards.

#2 Dutch Girl Donuts (Detroit)
Dutch Girl Donuts has been on its little corner of 7 Mile and Woodward since 1947, serving up glazed donuts like crack rocks. (Um. That's not meant as commentary on the area; just to indicate how addictive they are.) The donuts are always fresh and they churn out all the favorites: gooey cinnamon rolls, melt-in-your-mouth traditional raisin and maple doughnuts, crumbly cake doughnuts. Don't plan on hanging out long because the entryway is barely big enough to accommodate four people, but for a quick grab-and-go to/from work/home, this place can't be beat.

#3 Yum Yum Tasty Doughnuts (Melvindale)
You have to love a place with a name that gets right to the point. The doughnuts at Yum Yum Tasty Doughnuts are indeed yum yum tasty! (And in unique flavors like honey-glazed chocolate and Oreo.) So are the soft fresh-baked bagels (in a variety of flavors like cheese, salt and garlic), the monster-sized turnovers and cinnamon rolls, and the French crullers dripping with liquidy glaze. They also serve bagel sandwiches and homemade soups and chili, with plenty of room to sit down at a vinyl-and-formica booth and enjoy them. With all the sleek and shiny new doughnut shops in popping hues of pink and orange with sparkling white counters under bright fluorescent lights, there's something comforting in the old 1970's design palette of orange and brown with a faded old sign out front. This place is definitely an old-fashioned throwback in the grand tradition of donut-shop-as-social-center, and the staff is incredibly welcoming and friendly. This is the full-throttle doughnut shop experience as it was meant to be (even the coffee is better than most).

#4 Apple Fritter (Ferndale)
At the Apple Fritter in Ferndale, the early bird gets the doughnut. The late sleepy-in bird gets only disappointment. But if you get here early enough (i.e., before the crack of noon) to catch these guys still serving fresh, hot apple fritters right out of the oven, you're in for a spiritual experience in fritterdom ... think of it as warm cinnamony apple pie, but in a doughnut. They have a vast variety of other delicious, fresh fried dough-balls too, but when a place actually names itself after a particular item you should probably take their word for it and go with that.

#5 The Donut Cutter (Berkley)
Cinnamon- and sugar-drenched delicate French crullers. Heavy eclairs filled with homemade custard. Melt-in-your-mouth traditional glazed doughnuts. Moist, dense cake donuts fried up crusty on the outside but soft and crumbly on the inside. The Donut Cutter serves all the favorites; they open at 3 a.m. so after your post-bar Taco Bell bender you can have a post-post-bar-bender here with fresh, piping hot, gooey doughnuts ... or, if you're a Responsible-pants, stop in a few hours later during the decent hours of the A.M. and sidle up next to one of the senior citizen sentinels who keep dutiful watch over the place.

Bubbling under Avon Donuts (Pontiac), Knapp's Donut Shop (Rochester, Troy), Detroit Donuts (St. Clair Shores), New Palace Bakery (Hamtramck), Peoples Brothers Bakery (Southwest Detroit), Donutown Dghnt (Redford), Donutville USA (Dearborn), Variety Donuts (St. Clair Shores), Main Doughnuts (Royal Oak), New Martha Washington Bakery (Hamtramck)

[Real Detroit Weekly] Berkley Front

(Photo by Nicole Rupersburg)

"The year was 1994. Through the fog of flannel-shirted grunge there was still a glimmer of raw punk ethos and rockabilly pompadours in the likes of Social Distortion and Detroit's own Suicide Machines. It was also the year that the Berkley Front opened. One has nothing to do with the other, but the Front certainly looks like the kind of place Mike Ness and Jason Navarro could be spotted grabbing a beer together, with its stamped tin ceiling and old school jukebox filled with the Morrissey, Wilco, etc.

'For 17 years running, this place has been a beer bar. It has always been a beer bar, and it will always be a beer bar. They were here before being a beer bar was cool. It's pretty much the protopunk of metro Detroit beer bars..."

Read the rest of the story here.

Want to see more? Check out the Flickr set here.